Sometimes a patient starts a web form and then can't finish it where they started — their phone battery dies, the tablet goes back in the drawer, a browser loses its session.
A resume URL is your front desk's answer: a one-off link that moves the patient's in-progress form to any other device, with everything they'd already entered intact.
Normally, an in-progress web form can only be picked up in one of two ways:
Public URL — your form's standard link. It continues saved progress only on the device where the form was started. On any other device, it opens a fresh, blank form.
Identity-verified URL — a form request link. It continues on any device, but only after the patient confirms their identity with a code sent to their email.
A one-off resume URL is the third option, created by you: it opens the patient's in-progress form on any device, skipping identity verification entirely. It can be used exactly once, it expires automatically, and you can revoke it at any time.
🚨 A resume URL bypasses authorisation and identity verification — anyone who has it can open the patient's partially-filled form. Only create one when the patient asks for it, send it directly to them, and pick the shortest expiry that will do the job.
Generating a resume URL
Check out this interactive demo showing you how to generate a resume URL, or read only below.
In the portal, go to Responses → In progress.
Find the patient's response and click the link button on its row.
A chooser appears — it's the same place you copy the form's standard URL from, with each option explained. Click generate one-off resume URL.
Choose how long the patient has to use it: 1 hour, 24 hours or 7 days.
Copy the URL and send it to the patient however you normally reach them — text message or email both work well.
That's it. The link button on the response's row stays highlighted while it has an active resume URL, so you can see at a glance which fills have one out in the wild.
What the patient sees
Opening the link shows a simple confirmation page in your form's theme: it explains that your practice sent them the link so they can continue their form from where they left off, and that it can only be used once. One tap on continue filling and they're back in the form — same answers, same place, new device.
For identity-verified forms, there's no email code this time: the resume URL stands in for verification, since it came from you.
One URL, one use
The moment a patient uses a resume URL, it stops working for everyone else. Anyone opening it after that — or after it expires, or after you revoke it — sees a polite "this link is no longer available" page asking them to contact your practice for a new one. Nothing about the patient or their answers is shown.
If the patient gets stuck again on the new device, no problem: generate another resume URL. Their progress is saved from wherever they got up to.
☝️A resume URL doesn't replace anything — your form's public URL and any identity-verified request links keep working exactly as before. It's an extra key you can cut when a patient needs one.
Managing the URLs you've created
The same screen where you generate resume URLs keeps a history of every one created for that response — when it was created, by whom, when it expires, and its current status:
Status | Meaning |
active | Still usable. You can copy it again, or revoke it. |
redeemed | The patient used it to continue their form. |
expired | Its time ran out before it was used. |
revoked | Someone on your team cancelled it. |
A couple of things worth knowing:
Copying an active URL again shares the same link — it doesn't extend the expiry.
Revoke kills an active URL instantly. Sent it to the wrong person, or the patient found their original device down the back of the couch? One click and it's dead.
Once the form is completed, any outstanding resume URLs stop working automatically.
While a resume URL is active, the patient's saved progress is kept around — it won't be cleaned up out from under the link.
When you can't create one
The request hasn't been started yet. There's no progress to continue — send the identity-verified URL instead; it handles the "any device" problem on its own.
The patient turned off "save my progress". Without saved progress there's nothing to hand over. They can switch autosave back on from their own device, after which you can generate a URL.
What's recorded
The response's activity log notes when a fill was continued via a resume URL — and for identity-verified forms, that identity wasn't re-verified for the continued session. So if you're ever reviewing a response and wondering how it was completed, the answer is right there on the response.